Storm Celia Strikes

On Monday afternoon we walked with our Monday afternoon walking group. So far so normal.

On our way home from le Grand Pressigny I commented to Susan on the colour of the sky. I'm not sure that beige adequately conveys how strange it looked - it's not the first time we have seen a sky that colour, but for some reason we paid it no further thought.

Then, yesterday morning, we went to the car to drive to Loches, and it was covered in mud. Nasty red dusty mud (is there such a thing?) and I immediately realised that what were looking at was a visit from the Sahara desert mixed with a couple of very light rain showers.

Storm Celia had blown across the Canary Islands, then crossed North Africa and Spain, picking up dust along the way (there are some amazing photos of Spain under red dust skies if you go looking for them). The light rain we had yesterday morning had washed some of the dust out of the clouds, and voila.

We did a very perfunctory hosing off of the car on our way home from Loches, because the car wash in Loches itself had long lines of people waiting.The mud rain was the only evidence we had of Celia, so it was an annoyance rather than a problem.

At least we didn't have any washing on the line...